


Cry Into Your Shoulder

by StormDancer



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: ALL THE FLUFF, I'm Sorry, M/M, No Sex, shamless h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 18:43:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/StormDancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 3 AM, Liam's world is falling apart, and all he knows how to do is to let Zayn fix it for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cry Into Your Shoulder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunniskies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunniskies/gifts).



> This is ridiculously shameless g-rated h/c, made from me and Denice's conversation about how Zayn loves to take care of his boys. And not even in a sexy way. So I apologize for the lack of sexy times, and blame everything on Denice.
> 
> Also, obviously, this is fic, and set in some AU where none of the girlfriends exist, and don't show it to anybody involved. Although I have this headcanon where they read fic in a circle in dramatic voices and laugh their heads off about it.

Liam considers for a second before he knocks on the hotel door. There’s a good chance Zayn’s asleep—there’s always a good chance Zayn’s asleep—but it’s 3 AM, so right now it’s almost guaranteed. And no one likes to be woken up less than Zayn, and it’s not like Liam’s bleeding or about to die—oh god, not what he needs to think—or anything. He could just go back to his room and talk to Zayn—talk to anybody—in the morning.

But he doesn’t. If he went back he’d just walk circles for the whole night, cry into a pillow or scream or hit something or he doesn’t even know. He just—can’t. It’s too much, all of it, he needs to—he doesn’t know what he needs but he knows he can’t do it on his own, can’t settle, can’t deal with the sad and mad and everything coiled inside him because what’s he supposed to do, yell at Loki for being adorable or management for booking them this gig or the world for not giving him a fucking second or—he’s going to bloody explode, and he can’t, he can’t risk that, because if he explodes who’ll keep the rest of them together?

So he knocks. Soft first, but that’s not enough, so then he pounds, really. Partly because he can’t seem to do soft, now. Partly it’s because that’s the only way there’s even a chance Zayn will wake up.

He pounds four times, waits a second, then pounds again. He can’t hear anything from inside. Pretty soon people in other rooms are going to start waking up, and he wishes he was like Zayn or Louis, the sort of person who could say ‘fuck them’, but he’s not. He’ll try knocking once more and then he’ll call, he bargains with himself. And if that doesn’t work—he doesn’t know what he’ll do. Go back to his room and try not to cry, he guesses. He could wake up one of the other boys, Harry might even still be awake, but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t like to think too much about why he doesn’t want to, why Zayn is the only one he wants to talk to when he’s falling apart, why he didn’t even realize where he was going until he saw Zayn’s door. He doesn’t like to and he can’t right now because he’s already mixed up, breaking. He hits the door again, sharply.

“Fuck off,” comes a voice from within the room. It almost makes Liam smile. But—he can’t, not with the memory of that voice in his ear, the ‘where are you?’ and ‘can you come in?’ and his ‘I can’t.’ 

“Zayn,” he calls back, tries to be quiet because there are other people asleep, but he’s obviously loud enough because he hears the sound of someone moving inside and then Zayn pulls open the door. It’s almost a breath of fresh air, the sight of him, in ratty pajama pants and no shirt and still blinking sleep out of his eyes.

“This better be bloody important, Liam—” He pauses. “Li?”

“Can I—”

“Yeah, ‘course.” Zayn steps aside, so Liam can brush past him. Zayn’s room is its usual chaos, not quite the mess Louis’s is but only because Zayn never brings enough of anything he needs and too much of everything he doesn’t. Liam only notices insofar as it’s his leather jacket thrown over the chair and his shirt in a corner by his suitcase, and are those his sweats Zayn’s wearing? Zayn closes the door behind him, runs a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. “What’s up, babe?”

“I—” Liam paces to the window, looks out. There are palm trees there. He hates them like he’s never hated trees before. “The kennel called.”

“From London?” Zayn clambers back onto the bed and leans against the headboard, those endless dark eyes fixed on Liam. He’s got a bit of a crease on his forehead, like he’s anticipating bad news, but he doesn’t prompt, doesn’t demand anything. It’s why he’s here, Liam thinks, and not with any of the other boys—because Zayn doesn’t ask and he doesn’t push.

“Yeah.” Liam swallows. “’s—Loki’s really ill, apparently. Had to go to the animal hospital and they’re saying things like if he doesn’t get better they’ll have to put him down and they asked me to come in but I can’t, because I’m in bloody California and we have an interview tomorrow and—I can’t, but he’s alone, and—what if…”

“Oh, babe.” Zayn holds open his arms and Liam flings himself into them, feeling a little like Harry in the hopeless abandon of his cuddles, but he doesn’t care. Zayn is warm and familiar and smells like cigarettes and the remnants of Gucci cologne and Zayn, and Zayn doesn’t say anything, doesn’t make him say anything as he buries his face in Zayn’s shoulder and pretends he isn’t crying. That’s why he’s here, why he wants to be with Zayn right now when everything in him is dying, because Zayn doesn’t ask him to be strong, to be the responsible one, doesn’t ask anything at all, and never has, and that’s why he’s always loved him, too.

And there’s a part of him—a part of him he hates, because his dog is maybe dying thousands of kilometers away and all he can do is think with his dick—that can’t help but feel all the smooth skin pressed against his face, can’t help but think that if Liam tilted up his face right now and kissed him Zayn would probably kiss back, let him drown his sad and mad in Zayn’s lips and skin. But he doesn’t. Because he doesn’t want the first time he kisses Zayn to taste like tears and pity, because Loki, because there are a thousand other reasons he’s told himself a million times, things like image and the band and what would management say? And Loki, oh god, his poor puppy all alone without Liam, and there’s nothing he can do, not from here, not to make him feel better, not to fix it, and what’s Liam to do if he can’t fix things?

Zayn’s fingers start to comb through Liam’s hair, somewhere between petting and scratching, and Liam can’t help but lean into the touch. Zayn’s the band’s acknowledged best head-petter, so it’s not like it means anything (given how often Harry basically sticks his head under Zayn’s hand so he’ll start like some sort of cat), but it’s comforting nonetheless, the easy, steady pressure, the constant feeling of Zayn being there. He’s got this weird thing, Zayn does, where he can be as big as you need him to be, so when Harry needs to lean on someone he’s the right height for that, and when Louis needs someone to fall into giggling, he’s the right height for that, and when Liam wants someone to wrap around, to coddle and cuddle like his old teddy bear, he’s just the right size to tuck under Liam’s chin, and now, when Liam can’t be in control, can’t do anything and is dying of it, he feels big enough to wrap around Liam, his arms engulfing him, like there’s no world outside their circle and everything in it is going to be all right.

Except it’s not.

“Sometimes I hate this,” Liam mutters into Zayn’s shoulder. It’s the only place he can say it, otherwise the paps will pick it up or one of the other boys will hear it and start teasing. But in Zayn’s dark room, with Zayn’s breath still in his ears—he can say it.

Zayn’s fingers don’t falter, though he squeezes, slightly, brings Liam in closer. “Do you want to go back?”

“I can’t, Zayn, we have—”

“Fuck that. We can do the interview without you—” and that curdles in Liam’s stomach too, the they don’t need you as much as you need them that surfaces on dark nights when everything else is already crashing down. But Zayn understands, he always does, because he goes on, “Won’t be as good, and Louis might burn the studio down, but we could. Do you want to go back?”

“Zayn…”

“Do you want to?” Zayn stops petting to reach down, tilt Liam’s chin up with his fingers. The light from the streetlights outside catches on his eyelashes, on the sharp line of his jaw. His eyes are glinting with all the intensity he likes to hide beneath his blasé front. It’s almost painfully beautiful. “Forget everything else. Do you want to go back?”

Liam closes his eyes against the sight of Zayn, because it’s too distracting, because when he looks at him he too often only wants to give the right answer, the one that would make Zayn love him like he loves Zayn, even if the reason he loves Zayn is because the right answer is always whatever Liam thinks. But now… “There’s no point,” he says, heavily. “I couldn’t get back before—before they knew.” He chokes on another sob, and buries his head back into the crook of Zayn’s neck.

“Okay. Okay, babe, it’s okay,” Zayn mutters nonsense into his ear, nothing Liam really understands, just the comforting gravel of his voice. Liam just concentrates on that sounds as he shakes with it, frustration and fear and grief. Like years ago when he was convinced Zayn knew everything, had all the answers for everything in the world, because he’d never really talked to someone like Zayn before, who read and painted and saw so much. He’s figured out since then how much of Zayn’s seeming brilliance is a knack of knowing when not to talk and a way with a mysterious smile, but there’s still a part of him that’s convinced that Zayn must know how to make this better. How to make it right.

He cries until he can’t anymore, until his eyes start feeling heavy with the sheer exhaustion of grief. He doesn’t know how long that is, it feels like hours, but he doesn’t ask and Zayn doesn’t say anything other than his quiet murmurs, probably the same ones he used on his sisters when they would crawl into his bed after a thunderstorm, afraid of something too big to hold but sure Zayn could beat it. He doesn’t know if they did that, it’s not the sort of thing Zayn shares, but he can picture it nonetheless, Zayn cradling a big-eyed girl against a storm.

He’s pretty much drifted off when Zayn shifts beneath him. He makes a whining, complaining noise, because—Zayn can’t leave, he still needs him, he always needs him.

But his head’s being eased onto a pillow instead of the warmth of Zayn’s skin, and a finger is running down his cheek. “I’ll be right back, babe, don’t worry,” and Liam’s never not trusted Zayn, never learned how, so he keeps his eyes closed and tries to pretend.

He hears footsteps, someone walking around the room, and quiet words as he drifts in and out of a restless, uncomfortable doze.

“Come on, Ant, please…just check on him…yeah, I know, but…it’s a Sunday, ‘s not like you have other plans…because it’s Liam…thanks, I owe you…love you too.”

Then the bed creaks again, and a weight settles beside Liam. The pillow under his head shifts. 

Liam opens his eyes to Zayn’s hip, the heart right at eye level, just hinting out of the line of his pajama pants. Sometimes, Zayn is simply not fair. “Whazzat?” he mumbles. 

Zayn looks down at him and smiles, soft and sweet. “You still awake? Thought you had cried yourself out.”

“Was,” Liam agrees, still fuzzy. “Who was it?”

“Ant,” Zayn replies. He slides down so he’s lying next to Liam, wiggles so he’s tucked up against him, like he knows Liam needs that, needs the physical evidence of him. “He’s going to check on Loki, so at least someone’ll be there. And Loki liked him, that one time, remember? He’ll call if there’s news.” 

Liam freezes. He can’t help it. Thank God he’s taller than Zayn, that Zayn can’t see his face, because he knows he’s looking at him like Louis used to tease him about before he made the conscious effort to rein himself in so Zayn wouldn’t notice, the look that says Zayn hung the moon and stars and sun and probably invented sliced bread as well, but—it’s been three years, and Zayn still has all the answers. Zayn still knew what Liam needed when he didn’t, knew the parts of Liam he hides from everyone else, from himself. 

“That okay?” Zayn asks, and Liam can hear the nerves in his voice, knows he’ll be doing that thing that Liam can’t even look at anymore where he’s chewing on his lip, “I just thought—because you didn’t want him to be alone, and Ant owed me like three billion anyway, and he was there, and—”

“No, yeah, it’s—thanks.” You’re brilliant, he wants to say. He doesn’t, because the more he wakes up the more the worry comes back in, the what-if and his precious puppy and even Ant, as much as Liam likes him and Zayn adores him, isn’t the same as Liam, and—

“Hey, go back to sleep, yeah?” Zayn’s hand covers his, wrapping around it and holding tight over his chest. “Sleep’ll make it better.”

“Story of your life,” Liam mutters, deadpan and Zayn elbows him with a chuckle. Liam finds himself echoing it, somehow, pulling it out from deep inside of him. It’s rough and raspy, but it’s something. 

“It works,” Zayn protests. “And you said they won’t know for hours, right? So there’s nothing you could be doing. So sleep.”

Liam doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want to have to move, to leave this boy who’s somehow made him feel better when everything was falling to pieces. But he knows how Zayn is about sleep, and how grumpy he’ll be tomorrow if he doesn’t get at least some, and if there was any point in keeping score he would owe Zayn infinitely much, so he sighs and starts to push himself off the bed. “Yeah, you’re right, I should—”

“Lee-yum” Zayn drawls, in that way he has, like each syllable means so much more. He doesn’t let go of Liam’s hand. “Don’t be a donut, you shouldn’t be alone. Since when have I turned down a cuddle, yeah? C’mere. Actually—” he shoves Liam over, pulls the blankets out from under them, then pulls Liam back in and throws them on top. 

For once, Liam lets himself be pulled, pushed and pulled and rearranged so their legs are tangled and Liam’s cheek is pressed against Zayn’s shoulder. He’s still got tears drying on his cheeks, and he’s still about thirty seconds away from jumping on a plane, or at least from wishing he was the person who could, and Zayn’s still so close and so far away all at once, but—

“It’ll be all right,” Zayn whispers, heavy in the darkness, and his lips brush against Liam’s temple, like a promise, like a wish. “Promise.”

And Liam’s never been able to convince himself Zayn doesn’t know all the answers.

**Author's Note:**

> DON'T WORRY LOKI LIVES AND EVENTUALLY LIAM TELLS ZAYN HOW HE FEELS AND ZAYN'S IN LOVE WITH HIM TOO AND THEY HAVE LOTS OF HOT SEX. It just falls outside the scope of this fic. 
> 
> [ tumblr](http://ridiculouslittleidiots.tumblr.com/)


End file.
